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The Crawlers
Movie

The Crawlers

1991 • Unknown

Woke Score
2
out of 10

Plot

People from a small town are attacked by evil radioactive tree roots growing in the forest.

Overall Series Review

The Crawlers is a low-budget Italian horror film from the early 90s, also known as Contamination .7 or Troll 3. The plot centers on the residents of a small American town being attacked by mutated, radioactive tree roots. This ecological disaster is the result of a corrupt nuclear power plant official who illegally dumps hazardous waste into the local forest. A young woman, Josie, who has returned to her hometown, teams up with a scientist to investigate the mysterious deaths and ultimately confront the man-eating flora. The film's focus is on schlock horror and the environmental consequences of corporate greed. It is a creature feature with poorly executed effects and does not engage with modern socio-political or identity-based narratives. The conflict is purely against a monstrous manifestation of man-made contamination, and the character dynamics are typical of a B-movie, with no apparent ideological lecturing present.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

Characters are judged by their actions, specifically their involvement with the environmental crisis or their personal connections, not by immutable characteristics. The cast composition reflects a typical small American town without forced insertion of diversity or vilification of any specific ethnic group. The core conflict is not based on race or intersectional hierarchy.

Oikophobia4/10

The film focuses on the corruption of a single Western-based corporation—the nuclear power plant—and its greedy manager, which directly causes the monster outbreak. This is an indictment of corporate malfeasance and environmental irresponsibility, not a condemnation of Western civilization, its ancestors, or its core institutions. An American federal agency, the EPA, is involved in the investigation and eventual clean-up. The score is only slightly elevated because the immediate 'home' (the small town and its nature) is shown to be corrupted and actively hostile.

Feminism3/10

The main protagonist is a woman, Josie, who actively investigates and participates in the final fight against the creatures alongside a male scientist, suggesting an equal partnership. She is not portrayed as a 'perfect' Mary Sue, nor are the men consistently depicted as bumbling or toxic. The narrative does not focus on anti-natalism or career-vs-motherhood themes. The gender dynamics are conventional for an action-horror film where men and women cooperate to defeat a monster.

LGBTQ+1/10

The narrative centers entirely on the environmental horror and the radioactive roots. There is a complete absence of centering alternative sexualities, deconstructing the nuclear family, or lecturing on gender theory. The structure is entirely normative with no ideological content related to Queer Theory.

Anti-Theism1/10

The monster's origin is purely scientific (radioactive waste), and the plot is entirely secular. There is no representation of, or hostility toward, Christianity or any other religion. Morality is objective—corporate greed is evil, and protecting the community is good—with no embrace of subjective 'power dynamics' or moral relativism as a thematic concern.